Otomo Yoshihide - born in 1959 in Yokohama, Japan. As a teenager, he spent time in Fukushima. Staying independent, he has consistently composed a wide range of music from improvisation to noise music and pop, and his music talent has spread all over the world. He has a successful career as a film score composer and has produced more than 70 movie soundtracks. In recent years, he has produced special type of concerts and musical works in collaboration with other various artists under the name of "ensembles". In addition, one of his priorities is,producing musical workshop projects involving handicapped children. In 2011, after the Great East Japan Earthquake , he started "PROJECT FUKUSHIMA!" along with people in various sectors. He has been active beyond the music scene and this is the reason that he has attracted a great deal of attention. In 2012, he received the Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts in the category of Promotion for "PROJECT FUKUSHIMA!". In 2013, he received various prizes including the Japan Record Award for his accomplishments, such as composing the theme music for the TV drama "Amachan".

"I use my real name "Otomo Yoshihide" as my stage name. When you write your Japanese name in English alphabet, many people often write their given names first, then their family names, following in the Western traditional culture. But originally, some Asian countries, including Japan, write their family names first, and then their given names follow after that. In my opinion, there is not only one standard for people's names and we should respect the values each person attaches to their name. Calling someone by his first name is a wonderful custom in Western culture to express familiarity with each other but that custom is not necessary in Japan because nobody has ever called me by my first name. It does not mean that people are unlikely to become close friends with me. It is just that calling me "Otomo" seems easier. There are some places with such customs in the world; where people friendlily call you by your family name. I am definitely not a nationalist but I have a feeling that something is wrong with those people who do not only disregard the tradition I am familiar with, but would rather follow Western standards.

For this reason, I would like to continue using the notation "Otomo Yoshihide" as before. When you call me, please call me "Otomo" as before. This will not cause any problems in its use. Until now, many people have written my name "Yoshihide Ōtomo" or "Yoshihide Otomo" but please understand those notations are not my intention. I am sincerely grateful for your consideration."

"Ryu Hankil (류한길) was born in 1975 in Seoul, South Korea. He worked for about two years as a professional graphic designer. Hankil was a keyboard player in two famous Korean indie pop groups, but eventually left the groups because he was tired of typical music making and sounds. Then he started his own solo electro pop project, Daytripper, and released two solo albums, A Collector (2001) and Brownpaper (2004).

When he made Brownpaper, Hankil collaborated for the first time with the Korean noise / improvisation duo Astronoise. At that time, he saw a concert by Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M, Axel Dörner, and Taku Unami in Seoul. He changed his musical instrument and concentrated more and more on improvised music. Hankil has organized a monthly event called RELAY since 2005. He established his own publishing office called Manual, and releases improvised music and magazines.

Hankil uses clockworks as an instrument. He is interested in finding musical structures and so on in the vibration of objects. He focuses on using non-instruments-abandoned objects like old telephones and typewriters."

"Yuen is a musician and artist working with sound and has performed and exhibited extensively locally and internationally. He has designed and composed sound for installation, dance, film and TV / radio. He is known for his improvised sound and noise explorations as well as his drone / ambient / field recording approaches to music making.

Chee Wai's strong interest in Philosophy, Literature, Film and Cultural Studies often finds him incorporating textual ideas and concepts in his sound work, with themes like memory, loss, repetition and invisibility as main thought trajectories.

In 2008, together with Otomo Yoshihide (Japan), Ryu Hankil (Korea) and Yan Jun (China), they formed FEN - Far East Network, which made its debut at the Mimi Festival in Marseille. FEN has subsequently played in many countries and festivals around Europe and Asia. FEN is an ever breathing and evolving improv music quartet that aims to work predominantly with musicians and artists from all disciplines across Asia.

Chee Wai also plays synth and electronics for the avant / experimental rock band, The Observatory (Singapore). The Observatory, which has to date 6 full length albums - the most recent being Oscilla - often collaborates in a wide range of art and theatre projects. A four-piece band, The Observatory stays fully independent. It has toured Europe and Asia extensively, and also has several music programme initiatives, like Playfreely, to present interesting musicians and giving them a platform to collaborate and present music work that is normally not entirely conventional.

Chee Wai is Project Director for the Asian Music Network - a project that is part of Ensembles Asia helmed by Otomo Yoshihide. In it, Chee Wai is also the curator of the Asian Meeting Festival. In all his years being a musician, he has actively performed and connected fellow Asian musicians working with experimental and improve music, and also continually collaborating with artists from all disciplines. His hope is to develop a strong Asian community of artists and musicians.

He was one of the artists in the inaugural Singapore Biennale, and a highly sought after designer."

"Yan Jun was born in 1973 and he grew up in Lanzhou in the province Gansu, where during his teenage years he started writing poetry. He has lived in Beijing since 1999 where he has worked as a music critic, focusing mainly on Chinese underground rock. He founded the record label Sub Jam in 2000, which has since produced a lot of alternative Chinese music. He started making his own music in 2004. Whilst this may be seen as relatively late, his music making can be considered just one of several strings to Yan Jun's bow, along with performance, poetry, writing and curating.

Yan Jun's aesthetic is like a reflection of this borderless, non-hierarchical musical melting pot where everything seems possible. His main sounding materials are field recordings and noise. Esthetically he is interested in sound characteristics such as high frequencies, noise and silence. He plays live, as a soloist or with other musicians and uses lo-tech apparatus, often in improvisation and thus plays a part in the international 'improv' scene. As a composer and musician, he also explores the sonic consequences of body movements, works with video, makes sound installations and writes his own texts for his media works. It comes as no surprise that he has been presented to the Shanghai Biennale, has received a honorarium mention at Prix Ars Electronica and has been invited to the Berlin and Rotterdam international poetry festivals.

With and through different media, Yan Jun is exploring the poetic side of the everyday and of basic materials, exemplified in a few of his works from the last years. Recently, for "Living Room Tour," in Beijing 2014, he visited several private living rooms and from this made a collage of audio and video recordings. The live work "Gestures (Two)" depicts a scene which revolves around a slowly moving and silent figure who is captured in his movements by swarming photographers. In this rather still and quiet performance, the sound of the camera shutters and the flashes give a minimalist commentary on the implication of performing, listening and documentation.

In "Let's act", which was conducted in 2014 in Rotterdam, Yan Jun elegantly links the various cultural activities his oeuvre presents. A text written by Yan Jun about noise and the instrumentalization of noise is juxtaposed with field-recordings and video shots from everyday life. Here noise, rather than being composed, is drawn from a variety of essential parts of life such as communication and social gathering. The work thus artistically displays some of the main features of Yan Jun's music and art. Although he uses a broad range of techniques, he maintains a strong focus and concentration on the everyday and on the importance of the visual as well as an auditive reality."-Andreas Engström